Tonight, Jason Alexander was no joke. And with the woeful starting pitching the Astros have had almost all season, it was nice to have a serious pitcher on the mound for once.
Coming into the game with a 14.28 ERA, he almost single-handedly led the Astros to a 2-1 win over the Minnesota Twins. Alexander went six scoreless innings, allowing only four hits and a walk, with five Ks. His season ERA dropped almost in half, all the way down to 7.30.
It would sure help the Astros going forward if Alexander could rediscover the form he showed in 2025, which made him a reliable back-end starter.
Alexander got all the support he needed right away as the Astros got to Twins starter Zebby Mathews in the first inning. After a leadoff single by Jeremy Pena, Isaac Paredes gave the Astros an early 2-0 lead with a bomb to left field. As Blummer put it:
“The Mathews hanging cutter just got E-socked.”
Astros pitching stayed hot in the seventh, with Steven Okert striking out the side. Things got dicey in the eighth, with Enyal De Los Santos allowing a Byron Buxton double and an RBI single to Josh Bell, which could have been handled by second baseman Braden Shewmake, but was scored a hit.
The Astros’ most reliable reliever in 2026, Bryan King, got the last out in the eighth. In the ninth, King struck out Brooks Lee on the 13th pitch of the at-bat, but after a two-out single, he was removed in favor of Bryan Abreu.
Abreu, who came into the game with a 7.80 ERA, had to make this super exciting. He hit the first batter he faced, which brought up slugger Byron Buxton. A wild pitch then put the winning runs in scoring position. But Buxton popped up the Abreu 3-2 slider, perhaps expecting a fastball, which on this night topped out at a sub-par 94 MPH.
All’s well that ends well, but all is not well with Bryan Abreu despite the save.
The Twins out-hit the Astros 8-5, but Astros pitching kept the ball in the park, whereas one bad pitch by Twins starter Mathews was enough for the Astros win.
Happy with Alexander performance, but a pitcher that depends on the changeup is not for me.